A 'bite' of history in Caruthersville

While out fishing one day in 1989 along the banks of the Mississippi, local John Buchanan stumbled across an interesting find. It was a large object that looked a great deal like a big molar -- like a giant tooth.

He took it home along with some of his other interesting finds and placed in on a shelf where it sat for more than 20 years until just recently when he decided he would like to find out exactly what it was.

At the suggestion of the local game warden, Buchanan took his find to the Pink Palace Museum Archeology Department in Memphis.

Almost immediately, they told him that what he had found was a piece of history in the form of an American Mastodon tooth that was somewhere between 10,000 to 25,000 years old.

Mastodons were large tusked mammals that are now extinct. They were similar to elephants and mammoths in the sense of their size and appearance, but they were not closely related. Their teeth were a great deal different than elephants, as they had blunt, conical, nipple-like projections on the crowns of their molars which were more suited for chewing leaves than the high-crowned teeth mammoths used for grazing. The name mastodon actually means "nipple teeth."

The American Mastodon is the youngest member of the mastodon family. It lived from about 3.7 million years ago until it became extinct about 10,000 BC. Unlike elephants, they resembled a wooly mammoth in appearance as they had a thick coat of shaggy hair and long tusks. Their main habitat were cold spruce woodlands and they are believed to have roamed in herds.

Scientists believe mastadons disappeared from North America about 12,700 years ago during the mass extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna, which is what scientists believe was the result of a rapid climate change. Also adding to this was that the latest Paleo-Indians entered the American continent and expanded to relatively large numbers, and their hunting may have depleted them as well.

Today, mastodon teeth are far more rare than mammoth teeth and the number of high quality, intact and un-restored pieces are very unusual. Those coming from river beds are often in the best shape, but the fossil-bearing rivers of the world that produce these teeth are very limited. Compared to many other fossil teeth, high quality mastodon teeth have become rare, and the prices for them are always guaranteed to appreciate as the supply can never satisfy the demand that exhibits and researchers have for them. While many mastodon remains have been found in Missouri, most have been found in the northern and central regions.

As for Buchanan and his tooth, he plans to fix up a display case for it and to keep it for a while, but he says he will definitely be watching more closely for interesting finds on his fishing trips.